A Mercenary's Tale
by GiantFlyingHog
Summary: James (my OC) gets in and out of more trouble than just about anyone. I have no idea where this story will go. Let's find out. Rated M for future intense violence. Story starts in Skyrim, but will move to Cyrodil, and maybe some other places.
1. Chapter 1

**A Mercenary's Tale**

 **I do not own anything related or pertaining to The Elder Scrolls. Some characters in the story will be created by me, but a few characters and the world itself belong to Bethesda.**

It's not every day that your life flashes before your eyes. Even in my line of work it doesn't happen that often. But when a dozen men have arrows pointed at you, it can hardly be considered a normal day. For the first time in my life, I looked back, and tried to figured out just where I had screwed up.

My name is James. I may not be the strongest, smartest, or sneakiest mercenary around, but I get the job done. One day, I got the offer of a lifetime. Ten thousand gold. Enough to retire. Enough to sleep in a real house, not in an inn or on the ground in the woods. As you might expect from a job this well-paying, it was going to be tough. If only I had realized just how much trouble I was getting into.

My new employer was named Jack. Of course, I suspected that was just a name he invented, and I happened to be right. Anyway, he offered me all that gold just to steal something, After all, I wasn't just a mercenary. I took just about any job I could, legitimate or not. Now, I was hired to steal something. Easy, right? Well, when you get paid not to ask questions, you don't why your employer thinks you can steal one of the most valuable objects in the world: the Amulet of Kings. From what I know, the amulet was rendered unusable and even unwearable after the last Dragonborn emperor died, but what do I know? After convincing my employer that this heist was worth twenty-five thousand, I hoped he would go away. He didn't. And so I was stuck with the toughest heist in the world.

 **Hello, and thank you for reading the first chapter of my first of hopefully many stories. Thank you to my friend dimension crosser for giving me the idea of writing here. For now, I need to get some sleep, then continue writing.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry about the previous chapter being short, I really just wanted to get it out there so I could get it out of my head and start brainstorming. Anyway, here's another chapter. Have fun.**

 _Last time:_ I got a job. A stupidly well paying and also stupidly crazy job.

 _Now:_

So I was left standing there, hoping for some way I could pull this off. Well, I thought, might as well go see Erath. Erath was a small time criminal in Whiterun. If I was lucky, he might know someone who could get me some decent supplies. As usually happened with jobs of this magnitude, the client was footing the bill for anything I bought for the mission, so I could be fairly safe in the knowledge that at least I would die well prepared. Anyway, I suspected that I must have looked angry, or at least stressed out, which generally ends badly for Erath, which would explain why he looked so terrified when I showed up. Then again, most people would be afraid to see a 5'10" man in a black cloak with a longsword strapped to his back.

" What do you want? Please don't hurt me!" he practically screamed as I walk in the door.

"Relax" I said as soothingly as possible, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need some information"

"Last time you showed up with that look on your face, I ended up with bruises covering every part of my body. What do you need information on?" He scurried over to his piles of scrolls and books'

"I need to know the location and security of the Amulet of Kings" Erath's jaw dropped as I said this

"Are you crazy? There is no way anyone can get to the Amulet. You may be good, but you're not that good."

" Well, if I die trying, then I won't bother you any more, and if I succeed, then I'll retire, and you won't see me ever again." Erath smiled at this last bit

" Somehow I doubt that you would ever retire. Anyway, here's the info." He handed me some documents, which detailed the location the Amulet and the blueprints of the building it was in.

"Thanks Erath." I handed him his fee, and went on my way. I had my work cut out for me, so I headed over to my favorite shop, and got supplies: a few boats for my small crossbow, a few poisons, a grappling hook, and some improvements to my armor, making it just a little harder to get through. I was going to need all the help I could get. I finally went to then inn to get a good night's sleep. Turns out, that wasn't going to happen...

 **And cliffhanger. To anyone who has put up with my writing to this point, thanks for putting up with my poor dialogue and kinda lame plot. Sorry for another short chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to write another chapter soon.**


	3. Chapter 3

**If anyone is actually reading this, thank you. Sorry for taking so long with this chapter.**

 _Last time_ : I got some gear and went to sleep.

 _Now:_

I woke up to the sound of something large hitting wood and panicked yells. I jumped up from my little bed in the Prancing Pony Inn (which is an awful name), grabbed my sword, and gathered a little bit of fire in my other hand. I carefully peaked out of my tiny room, and saw the biggest orc I had ever seen with a battleaxe to match. He must have been about seven and a half feet tall, with heavy plate armor and burning red eyes. Literally burning. I didn't know much about orcs, but that probably wasn't good. I hoped he wasn't paying attention to me, and snuck up behind him as he turned to yell at more people

"Where is the mercenary?" The orc shouted in a voice that could shatter rocks considering that half of the bar seemed to splinter. There was definitely something magical going on with this guy, but I didn't want to wait to find out. I was about to shove my sword through a gap in his armor, I must have stepped on a loose board, because the orc whirled around and swung his axe at my head. I managed to duck under his swing at the last second, and got my left hand up to his face, holding the fire to it. His flesh began to burn and melt, and I put just a bit more magic into the spell to make it stick to his face as I moved away. As dropped his axe to clutch at the burning ruin where his face was, I gripped my sword with both hands and swung it as hard as I could at the top of his head. The blade cut about three inches in, and extinguished the fire on his face. A mix of blood and other fluids leaked from his head as I pulled out my sword. I proceeded to search his body for any indication of who he worked for, and after finding nothing, briefly collapsed on the floor.

"I think you might need to leave." The barkeep said after a few minutes. "If that guy was looking for you, more might be. I don't want any more trouble under my roof, and you obviously aren't safe here." I simply nodded

 **Again, kind of short, but whatever. Sorry for taking so long, I just couldn't find time to write.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Insert obligatory message about no one reading this. I guess I'm just getting lazy now. Anyway, more writing! YAY!** **Also, before I forget, in chapter two, I said the character picked up boats for his crossbow. I meant bolts. He does not have a boat-shooting crossbow, that would be ridiculous. Awesome, but ridiculous.**

 _Last time:_ I killed someone. Brutally.

 _Now:_

So after I got thrown out of the inn, which was not my fault, I went on my way. Fortunately, it was near morning, by which I mean around 3 o'clock, so I picked up some rations at a general store, and got going on the road.

For a while, everything seemed normal. I passed a few people on the road, none of them particularly interesting except a khajiit raving about calipers. Everything seemed completely fine. Of course, whatever god I pissed off at some point seems to keep sending bullshit my way. Draugr. In the middle of the road. Draugr never leave tombs. Ever. Someone is seriously fucking with me. I had been traveling for a while, so the world had darkened to the point where I might be able to sneak past. I crept through the outcropping of trees near the road, slowly, carefully stepping over branches, making almost no sound. Then I messed up. Careful as I was, I got distracted making sure that the draugr weren't looking at me, and stepped on a branch. I immediately froze. If the draugr noticed me, I might not be able to fight them. I held my breath as one of the draugr looked over to the trees. He walked closer and closer, pausing just outside the outcropping. My heart was pounding. After what felt like an hour, but was probably about a minute, he left, and I continued on my way. The rest of the day was uneventful, as was the day after that, but as I traveled on the forth night of my journey, I heard terrible howls, like wolves, but somehow different. As I walk into the terrible night, I saw the flash of tooth and claw...

 **And cliffhanger. Well, that took much longer than it should have to write. Anyway, as I forgot to mention, this story takes place around the time of the events of Skyrim, but without the appearance of the Dragonborn or dragons. Anyway, thanks for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

**I don't think anyone actually cares anymore, but after over 2 months, I'm back. For anyone who was waiting for the next chapter, sorry about the break. Real life decided to be a pain in the ass. Anyway, without further ado, the next chapter in the tale of a simple mercenary, who decided to take an insane job.**

 _Last time:_ I escaped a small army of draugr and ended seeing a flash of tooth and claw

 _Now:_

Normally when I wake up with an awful headache, it was proceeded by a night of drinking. Today, or night for all I know, it was a bit different.

 _Werewolves are commonly thought to be totally mindless, but that is not the case. In fact, there are more than capable of some rational thought, although they are prone to emotional outbursts. In some cases, werewolves have even been known to take their pray alive in order to preserve their food for later. A wise adventurer would be wary on roads at night._

- _An Adventurer's Guide_

A werewolf. A goddamn werewolf. I don't know if I have bad luck, or inadvertently pissed off a god. Either way, the bastard locked me in a cage. I've hunted werewolves before, but normally I just wait until they're asleep and slit their throats. This one might be a bit trickier. He was intelligent enough to take my weapon, but I might just be lucky enough to have kept one of my lock picks. I searched through my pockets, but that bastard must have come back in human form to search me again. Well, I decided to do something stupid. I gather up as much fire as I could, and attempted to melt through the lock.

 _Sanguinus Capum, the mushroom known more commonly as Bleeding Crown, is often found in caves, and any adventurer who ventures into one will likely find a sample. While normally quite a uninteresting fungus, it has been noted that when combined with iron shaving, it seems to make a rather explosive compound._

 _-An Adventurer's Guide_

I got out of the cage. My ears were ringing and I felt like I had been punched by a giant, but there wasn't much left of the cage, so I tried to pick myself up. I managed to get up and stumbled out of the cave. Apparently the werewolf had left the cave at some point. I was worse for ware, but still alive. It was time to continue on.

 **And done. Finally. I'm going to try to upload more regularly now, but I don't know if that will actually happen. Hoped you liked the new adventurer's guide entries thing.**


	6. Going on Hiatus

When I started this, I had grand, but not well thought out, plans. After starting this, I realized that I am not nearly a good enough writer to do anything great with this story. Because of this, I am putting this story on hiatus. If I ever feel like I can write this story well, I'll start writing it again, but for now, goodbye.


End file.
